Hahahah nice tourettes

love it

You know I had never considered that, but what a charming thought, you're spot on there!

PS

How does one go down the path of learning more about philosiphy (properly), without the expensive route of higher education? Its something I have looked at the surface of, and it just seemed so vast, I gave up immediately.

It doesn't really change anything because it will always FEEL like we have choice (free will), so we will just carry on the same anyway. The criminal may not be able to help the fact that he commits a crime, but at the same time, society cannot help but be disgusted and the police cannot help but arrest him.

When you read a book, or watch a film the last page or scene has already been written but we still carry on with it and it doesn't make it any less of an experience.

There are two main types of determinism, one is to do with the physical universe and cause and effect the other is to do with the way we may be limited by our genes in making emotion based decisions. I have gone more into depth about that here:

http://www.puaforum.co.uk/reviews/31...html#post40397

If you click on this link, you may feel as though you had the choice to do so. But that choice would not have appeared had I not posted the link and I would not have posted the link had I not got up just now thinking about this stuff.

I would not have got up just now thinking about this had I not overslept due to strange dreams. I would have overslept and had strange dreams if I had not split up with my gf. I would not have split up with my gf if xy and b had not have happened and so on and so forth all the way back to the big bang and even quite possibly beyond it.

However it doesn't change a thing. If you click on the link and read the post it will feel like free will and who knows it may just help you... and then a whole lot of other cause and effect consequences will come out of that too. All that matters is that it is a good experience. Now I must meditate... this is the effect of a lot of causes.

I have tried meditating when lying down before, and I fall asleep every time. But when I fall asleep, its not the same. Its kind of a deep deep sleep, but then when I wake up, I feel like I have literally ZERO energy at all. I do not feel refreshed at all.

I have meditated sitting up before, and this does make me feel more refreshed, but sometimes it makes me more tired. I've even wasted 20 mins meditating in the toilet at work before!

But meditation is not something I do regularly, and I'm not really sure why. I just forget, or don't feel motivated to do it. I guess I kind of have my own style of meditation, when I just sit in silence and relax.

But my mind is so "outcome dependant" that I feel I am looking for something when meditating, which kind of defeats the point. Its like I am searching for myself, but don't know what I am looking for.

I've also listened to one of those audio files that are supposed to induce a certain type of brainwave, but that really made me feel so dead and out of energy again. Also, one of Paul McKenna's cds did that to me as well, the thing about "I can make you rich". Why does my brain go so negative after these self improvement methods?

I guess when you think about it, cause and effect is all around us, but nobody ever takes notice of it. Maybe we can use cause and effect in our favour?

I'm just generalising here, but your comments make me want to relate a little bit more of my own personal experience on this.

As someone who has suffered depression for most of his life, in my experience getting a social life will not make it go away. It will hold depression at bay but the fact of the matter is that depression is an internal mindset that cannot be changed or removed by external forces.

You have to make a conscious effort. You have to say "I'm not going to be depressed anymore". Easier said than done, I know, but in order to get that social life you need to be somebody others will want to hang around with in the first place.

Of course friends and family are there to help you help yourself, and certainly your career choices can have a major influence on the people you meet and how you feel. That's the main reason I left a secure, well paid job where I felt I didn't fit in to try and take a more proactive approach in what I did with my life, rather than just going with the flow. Progress is slow and sometimes quite painful, but when the alternative is staying as you are for the next 30 to 40 years, motivation to grind out a result is there.

Using cause and effect in your favour is generally called making good decisions. Whether or not you had free will in making them is irelevant. All that matters is the journey and the outcome.

There is all this talk of being "non outcome dependant" which is getting to be a bit of an RSD cliche', and is exagerated to the point of not giving a fuck about the outcome, but of course we are interested in the outcome. Otherwise what would be the point?

Do the coachs of winning football teams tell their players to be "non outcome dependant"? Do they fuck! We all want a positive outcome. We want to win.

Read up on meditation to do it correctly; obviously you can't be too fixed on the outcome, as Rome was not built in a day, but at the same time you are doing it for a REASON.

Yeah I know what you mean, I've been reading an NLP book, and it does mention about having outcomes that you want to achieve, and making it a positive thing rather than negative. Its called "outcome thinking", and it says the opposite is "problem thinking".

What about when you are trying to use cause and effect in your favour, wanting a positive outcome, and you think you have made a good decision, but then the result is bad? There have been times in my life when I have thought "i made a good decision, im helping others, and then shit happens to make life harder again". Maybe thats just my bad viewpoint, cos I should frame problems as an opportunity.

I don't think we will ever figure out everything. I think it's like a dog chasing it's own tail, or like unpeeling layer after never ending layer from an infinite onion. There seem to be an endless stream of sub-atomic-particles; new ones are being found all the time.

We have even gone behind the big bang now, to the singularity, and are theorising about what there was behind that, the multiverse, m-brane theory etc... it will never end.

So, therefore we will never arrive at a point in which we can prove that there is or isn't free will... there are just too many variables. If you you place a drop of water on the back of your hand it will roll off and land in a predetermined place, due to the shape of your hand, bumps, contours, hairs, a slight breeze etc ad infinitum. There are so many variables that all the computers in the world could not figure it out, but it doesn't mean that it is not predetermined. Logic does seem to indicate that there is no free will... but I suppose I will just carry on as though there is.

People are afraid of this theory as they think that it will make us all irresponsible for our actions. They don't like the thought that the universe and us all included may just be like an extremely intricate flower opening in a predetermined way. It offends the ego to think that we don't have free will.

Personally, I don't think it makes a jot of difference. We don't storm out of movie theatres because the ending is predetermined. Just enjoy the show.

Oh yeah, we were talking about depression. How depressing; I have no choices! lol So I also have no choice in the matter when I keep forgetting that I have no choice and feel as though I do.

The key is the emotions. We will never feel like we are a computer program, because we have emotions. When something affects us on an emotional level, we cannot detach ourselves and say, "Oh, but she had no choice." We react, and we are so driven by our emotions and sensations that it does indeed feel like we made a choice.